Trust performance in clinical trials

The performance of London North West Healthcare NHS Trust in initiating and delivering clinical research trials

The LNWH NHS Trust is committed to providing patients with the opportunity to access high quality research. As part of the Government’s Plan for Growth (2011) it wishes to see a dramatic rise and sustained improvement in the performance of providers of NHS services in both initiating clinical trials and delivering research. This is also intended to make the UK a more attractive location to host and undertake research for commercial organisations and increase the number of patients participating in clinical trials. The key measures that are reported are:

Initiating clinical trials: the 70-day benchmark

The Government have set a target of 70 days for the time that NHS trusts should take between receiving a valid research application and when the first patient is recruited into the trial – this is known as the '70-day benchmark'.